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My suggestion to Secretary of State Clinton? Why don't you scratch the "global climate change crisis" baloney out of your agenda and replace it with something that is far more realistic and important? President Bush used every chance that he had, including his trip to Beijing last August, to pressure Beijing on its human rights policies and so should you. While the effects may not be tangible, our pressure on Beijing regarding human rights does make a difference.

The right to bear arms is more than a Constitutional right: every human being has the natural unalienable right to self-defense. Cicero said 2,000 years ago, “If our lives are endangered by plots or violence or armed robbers or enemies, any and every method of protecting ourselves is morally right.” The U.S. Constitution, the constitutions of 44 states, common law, and the laws of all 50 states recognize the right to use arms in self-defense. Right to carry laws respect the right to self-defense by allowing individuals to carry concealed firearms for their own protection. So many liberal politicians and...

It was very nice of Google to apologize to China this week for allowing ’smut’ links to appear in its search listings. The question is, did Google actually make any effort to modify its search listings in China? Search results for the word ’sexy girl’ causes one to wonder if Google was simply giving lip service to the Communist giant...

The students who do not quickly shout out the name 'Chairman Mao' bring up other notable names in Chinese history such as the ancient philosopher Confucious and China’s beloved first premier, Zhou Enlai. A few students have even mentioned Deng Xiaoping as China's most famous person since it was he who opened the doors and pushed China down its present path of development.

Today is National Day in China. On this day, 49 years ago, Mao Zedong and the Communist Party of China founded the People's Republic of China with a ceremony at Tiananmen Square. For most Chinese people, however, this day is not about Chairman Mao nor is it about the triumph of the Communist Party. Today is a day of rest in China; this national holiday is an opportunity to travel or to spend time with friends. While the day may be politically charged in Beijing and some other big cities, most Chinese people that I know are not so interested...

The chances of running into a person who is legally concealing a firearm is increasing in New Mexico. That's because there has seen a 63 percent increase in people getting their concealed carry permits in the last year. As expected, mostly men have concealed carry permits in New Mexico, but the number of senior citizens who carry guns is surprising. In the five years that New Mexico's concealed carry law has been around, more than 11,000 men have held a license. But women are being certified as well. One out of every five licenses are being issued to a female.

"Quite a few of your English students are prostitutes," a friend told me today as she recounted a conversation that she had with her hair stylist recently. "The guy who cut my hair told me that many of your training center's female students come to him two or three times a week to get their hair done before they go to work." She went on to explain that according to the hair stylist, some of my students sell their bodies at night in local hotels where there might be as many as 200 prostitutes gathered in one establishment. Other students...

Most of my Chinese friends as is the case with many Americans, know very little about Governor Sarah Palin, John Mcain's choice for running mate in the 2008 Presidential Election. When they do learn more about her, there is one aspect of her life that will undoubtedly catch the attention of many people here. Earlier this year, Governor Palin gave birth to a baby boy despite the fact that doctors told her that he would have Down syndrome. Making the same choice in China is nearly unheard of. If a Chinese mother finds out that her unborn baby is afflicted...

Someone needs to introduce Senator Barak Obama to Chinese President Hu JinTao just as soon as possible. I am sure the two would get along just fine. After all, if Mr. Obama is elected President of the United States in November, there is much that he can learn from the Communist Party, especially in the area of censoring free speech...

Like a lot of people down here in Texas, I keep a gun close at hand. This usually means one in my vehicle and one on my person. I’ve kept one in my vehicle for nearly two decades and one on my person since 1998, when I got my first concealed carry permit. It’s hard to beat the protection that my concealed carry permit affords my family and friends, even if they aren’t armed. The fact that I am armed means they are safer when with me whether they realize it or not; and everything from annual FBI crime numbers...

These strong words coupled with President Bush’s visit to Beijing send a powerful message to the CCP and to the rest of the world; President Bush and the United States will participate in the 2008 Oympic Games but they refuse to ignore the dire human rights crisis that is taking place in China. President Bush is not attending the Olympics to appease Beijing; he is attending so that he can have one last opportunity to pressure Chinese president Hu JinTao, who unlike President Bush, still has a few years left in office. While President Bush and President Hu have had...

While I wish I could feel sorry for Gosper, there is just one problem. Every time he opens his mouth, he seems to be defending or at least speaking for the Chinese government. Yesterday, for example, in response to criticism about the Internet censorship he said "that we are not working in a democratic society, we’re working in a communist society." He continued by stating that "this is China, and they are proud to be a communist society." Really? Did the IOC not know that China was a proud "communist society" when it bestowed the Olympics upon Beijing eight years...

If it was not already, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is now officially an accomplice to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and all of the Chinese government’s attempts to censor free speech and block personal freedoms in China. According to a report from Reuter’s on Wednesday, “some International Olympic Committee officials cut a deal to let China block sensitive websites despite promises of unrestricted access, a senior IOC official admitted on Wednesday.” Cut a deal? There was no deal. The IOC ‘rolled over and played dead’ just like it has been doing since it bestowed the Olympics upon Beijing 8...

Personally, I do have some mixed feelings about the Dalai Lama. While I do not buy into all of the conspiracy theories about links between him and the CIA or his involvement in the recent Tibet uprisings, I am not convinced that his organization is as clean ‘as the driven snow’ as so many would like to suggest. I realize that he won a Nobel Peace Prize some years ago, but after it was bestowed upon Al Gore last year, I lost faith in the value of that distinction. No matter how peaceful of a man he is able to...

While Mao’s body has been amazingly preserved since his death in 1976, it seems that his spirit has not survived the test of time. He may lie in eternal peace inside his Mausoleum but the world around him has changed considerably; China is no longer the gray and drab country that it was during Mao’s time. It is now a place where people can dream and then go out and make that dream come true. It is not like the old days. People other than just high government officials can drive cars. Chinese people can do business and store up...

In the end, the Chinese government does not really care about the escalating violence in Sudan. As long as its investments and workers in Sudan are protected, it views the human rights issues as an internal Sudanese matter. In fact, the CCP is most likely sympathetic to the Sudanese government; after all, China has also been a victim lately of what the CCP would consider to be international ‘meddling’ in the case of Tibet. The CCP’s failure to promote positive change in Sudan is simply a manifestation of its own failures in China. Until China can improve the human rights...

"We know that reunification with China is inevitable," a Taiwanese friend told me recently. "The economy in Taiwan is not so good and many of our jobs are being transferred to China," he explained. "Taiwan will have to cooperate with the mainland in order to maintain a healthy economy." My friend told me these things with little conviction in his voice. While the Chinese government has consistently claimed that most Taiwanese people are in favor of reunification with the mainland, my friend, like many others I have talked to around the world, has stated that the vast majority of Taiwanese...

China has always been very quick to demand apologies from countries that say or do things that “hurt the feelings of the Chinese people.” This year, companies like Carrefour and CNN, and people like Nancy Pelosi and Sharon Stone have experienced the wrath of the Chinese public when their actions or words were perceived to be inflammatory or damaging to China’s reputation. Is it now not time for China to issue an apology of its own for hurting the feelings of the world with the statements that were made by Comrade Zhang in Tibet? After all, the 2008 Olympic Games,...

My initial reaction to these strong anti-corruption measures by the CCP is “Hats off to Beijing!” It would appear that the CCP is taking these widespread allegations, which have existed from almost Day 1, very seriously. My second reaction, however, is a little more cautious. It is incredible to me that the Chinese government was able to investigate over 1000 allegations of corruptions in less than 2 months. Such a process would have taken at least 6 months if not a entire year to be completed in the United States. Hopefully, in its new found zeal to fight corruption in...

WHEN IT comes to a city plan to keep concealed weapons from public places, Felix Arena, proud gun owner, has a few thoughts. First, he says, state law gives him the right to carry concealed firearms with a permit. So what gives Seattle the gumption to trump that? Second, he says, the plan would be hard to enforce unless the city wants airportlike security in parks and other properties. Wands and metal detectors cost money and are a hassle for crowds. Third: "It's just bulls - - -," Arena summed up during a break from his checker job at a...

Why is it so difficult for them to conceive of a black man in charge of America? The answer is quite simple. When Chinese people think of America, they think of the color white. Chinese women use umbrellas in the sun to keep their pale skin while both Chinese men and women try to change their hair color to blond or at least something lighter. Chinese people know all about Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Britney Spears, and the Backstreet Boys but not so much about Bill Cosby, Martin Luther King, and Oprah Winfrey. The fact that someone other than a...

While Seattle worries about concealed weapons, a new fad in the West is to pack and carry you pistol for all to see...

What makes this environmental policy different than others in China? Quite simply, most stores in China, while they may have initially protested the policy, are more than willing to comply. It is not as if the plastic bags that stores doled out to customers were ever really free of charge. The costs of the bags were passed along to the customers in the prices of items that they purchased. Under the new policy, a store can now charge money for plastic bags that the customers were most likely already paying for. The stores can also profit from the sale of...

Where Is the Dignity of the United States? Events in Flushing show Uncle Sam in a compromising position By Stephen Gregory Epoch Times Staff Jun 03, 2008 For over two weeks now, organized mobs have harassed Falun Gong practitioners in Flushing, New York. For over one week, we have known that those mobs have been incited by the Chinese Consul General for New York, Mr. Peng Keyu, yet Peng has not been expelled. The World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG) released a tape on May 23 of Peng talking with one of its investigators. In...

The lack of confidence that some of my Chinese friends seem to have in their government comes as a surprise for me. After all, it would seem that by now, Beijing should be an expert at providing assistance for displaced people. We are talking about a government that recently has completed the Three Gorges Project, the world’s largest dam, and in the process has had to relocate up to 4 million people. Many of these people, by no choice of their own, were sent to brand new cities that the Chinese government quickly constructed as the dam’s resevoir began to...

“I don’t think that the donations are getting to the earthquake victims,” a friend of mine somberly told me recently. “A few of my friends came back from Mianyang recently,” he explained, “and they told me that the earthquake survivors were not being given enough food and water.” It was feared, he said, that the much of the money was being pocketed by local officials or being used to fund activities that were unrelated to the tragedy in Sichuan.

While it is a good sign that the government will allow affected families to have more children, I wonder how Chinese people feel about the wording of this policy exemption? The underlying message behind the government’s announcement seems to be that “we know that your injured son or daughter may be now completely useless so we will allow you to have another try.” In addition, the fact that Chinese parents in the region will not have to continue paying fines on dead children that the Chinese government never wanted to see born in the first place can hardly be construed...

So why else might the CCP be more willing this time to share information with its citizens and the world? One word says it all. Tibet. Does anyone remember Tibet? It is a province in South Western China that up until last Monday was basking in the world spotlight as Tibetans and their supporters attempted to portray what they view as ‘cultural genocide’ and ‘religious opression.’ No one that I know of is suggesting that the Chinese government somehow artifically created the earthquake to take the world’s attention off Tibet and human rights or that they are happy with event....

The Chinese government’s decision to allow the seemingly unrestricted flow of information out of Sichuan this week in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake has surprised many. However, the general assumption that the Chinese government ‘all of the sudden’ decided to pursue a policy of transparency and openess is incorrect. This decision was in fact made last year when the State Council passed the People’s Republic of China Ordinance on Openness of Government Information.

The architects of Chinese repression in Tibet are three senior bureaucrats little known to the outside world but destined to be the focus of condemnation from human rights groups in the months ahead. China preserves the facade of an autonomous regional government and has paraded its ethnic Tibetan figureheads over the past week. Chinese researchers say they are political nonentities. The real mastermind of Chinese policy towards the restive ethnic minorities is a 67-year-old lifetime communist functionary named Wang Lequan. Wang has proclaimed himself to be the top terrorist target in China. Nominally, he heads the party in Xinjiang, which,...

How do you feel about allowing loaded guns in our national parks? Do you feel the need to pack heat while wandering the wildflower meadows of Paradise on Mount Rainier? Are you determined to protect yourself against overly aggressive squirrels at Hurricane Ridge? As you may have heard, Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne has agreed to modify existing rules that prohibit people from carrying loaded weapons in the national parks. The new rules will be ready for public comment by the end of April [289K PDF]. The push comes from the U.S. Senate. Fifty senators added their signatures to...

Lurker Bill, BufordP and I arrived at Westminster fresh from the corners at Olney about 20 minutes late. But that still gave us an hour and a half standing with Eagles and fellow FReepers PatrioticMarineMom and RockerMom2MyHero. PatrioticMarineMom (the organizer of this Gathering/FReep) and RockerMom2MyHero (co-organizer) had already been there for about 25 minutes, getting honks, waves and cheers from passing supporters. And when we arrived, we received a warm welcome from the Westminster Eagles and the passing supporters. The five of us received the honks, waves or shouts of support from almost every passing car. Being in the old...

Westminster, MD - Call for "boots on the corner", December 8th and 29th., 1:30 to 3:30. On Dec. 29 we may be starting earlier, so watch this thread for more info. I'll try to have the Mods update the title with the Post that has new info. Westminster is located on MD Rte. 97 just 6 miles from the Pennsylvania State Line. When you get into Westminster, turn left on Main Street and go 1 mile to the library at 50 E. Main Street. If you are coming from Frederick, MD area, take I-70 towards Baltimore to MD Rte. 27...

A CCP High-Ranking Official Renounces CCP By Jiang Bo Special to The Epoch Times May 04, 2007 I am a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) official. Being immersed in the official circles of the CCP for so many years, I have long recognized its dirty true colors. Living among these official circles, nobody can stay pure. Everyone becomes corrupt in this environment as they fish for personal gains. If you wish to remain uncontaminated, you will immediately be regarded as different and cast aside. So in order to survive and secure a seat for yourself, you must voluntarily dye yourself the...

Excerpt - BEIJING, Dec 18, 2006 (AP Worldstream via COMTEX News Network) -- Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has set up a Communist Party at the headquarters of its China operations, news reports said Monday. The move follows the success of China's government-sanctioned union body in organizing unions at Wal-Mart's 68 outlets in China. The party branch was set up Saturday at Wal-Mart's China headquarters in the southern city of Shenzhen, the party newspaper People's Daily and the local newspaper Shenzhen Special Zone Daily said. ~ snip ~

Better way to handle Asian currencies By James Dorn, Financial Times, October 24 2006 Calls for government co-ordination of exchange rates to manage global imbalances are misguided. For a lesson in how exchange rate intervention can wreak monetary havoc, just look to the Plaza and Louvre agreements. The Group of Five industrialised nations – the US, the UK, Japan, Germany and France – met in New York in 1985 to agree on collective action to lower the value of the dollar. China was not a factor as its foreign exchange reserves were only $12.7bn and its overall current account was...

Chinese Naval Buildup Surprising, But Not Yet Alarming, Says AdmiralDefense Daily, June 8, 2006 The pace of Chinese naval expansion is faster than expected, but is not alarming yet, although Chinese intentions are not evident, a U.S. Navy admiral said last week. "Clearly...we kind of continue to be surprised by the growth of the Chinese Navy," said Rear Adm. Joseph Walsh, director of Submarine Warfare (N77), on June 1 during a speech on the future of the U.S. Navy at a symposium in Washington, D.C. "That is clearly something we watch." Walsh said the Chinese are focusing on fielding surface...

Symposium: China: Time Bomb WalkingAs President Bush met with Chinese President Hu Jintao at the White House this week, the issue of China’s rise as a global superpower took center stage. Serious concerns are mounting in Washington in regards to China’s increasingly aggressive global posturing. Indeed, Beijing continues to militarily threaten Taiwan, to support a nuclear North Korea, and to forge alliances with anti-American regimes everywhere, including with Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and Iran’s nuclear-aspiring Mullahs. As the military and economic threat of Beijing becomes increasingly apparent, the question arises: were we complicit in creating this communist monster? If we were,...

By Joel Mayor Loran Cuban President Fidel Castro today handed over the keys of vehicles to two electrical workers representing 101 technicians from Havana’s electricity works. The new Chinese-manufactured motor vehicles will be used in the upgrading of the national electric grid. This was the first consignment of specialized vehicles which will replace the old fleet of gas guzzling Zil 130 and 131, GAZ and KAMAZ trucks. The Cuban leader explained that though the primary purpose of the vehicles was to conserve electrical power, the new more efficient vehicles will also contribute to fuel savings. President Fidel Castro described these...

AmericanEconomicAlert.org | Fighting for American Companies, Fighting for American Jobs China Seeks to Perpetuate Advantages, Not Solve Problems By William R. Hawkins Thursday, April 20, 2006 As Chinese President Hu Jintao comes to Washington for a summit with President George W. Bush, all those watching the media reports and reading the official statements released by the two governments should remember the most famous words of the ancient Chinese strategist Sun Tzu, “Warfare is the Way (Tao) of deception.” The techniques of Chinese propaganda developed during the Cold War have not been abandoned, only modernized. Over the last year, Beijing has...

Issue Date: April 24-30, 2006, Posted On: 4/24/2006 China Briefing: Another China on another planetCommentary by Kin-ming Liu A summit between the president of the proudest democracy and the leader of the largest dictatorship took place in Washington last Thursday.  Listening to some of the things being uttered in public, however, one can be forgiven for mistakenly thinking that the visitor must have come from another China on another planet. Hu Jintao, general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, told the gathering on the South Lawn at the White House that the Chinese are “firmly committed to the path of peaceful development.”  Later,...

The recent murder of Allen Ngai Leung, a famous Chinese-American community leader in San Francisco's Chinatown, has exposed a political tension that has silenced many of Chinatown's leaders who favor Taiwan and are against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Leung was killed at the scene by a masked gunman disguised as a robber, who fired four shots into Leung after breaking into his business, Wonkow International Enterprises, located at the intersection of Jackson Street and Kearny Street on the afternoon of February 27. The police and the majority of the Chinese-American community leaders in Chinatown have largely been keeping silent...

Shanghai. December 15. INTERFAX-CHINA - China's plan to add about USD 300 bln to the country's 2004 GDP number, which would make it the world's fourth largest economy, has been in the pipeline for years, economists surveyed by Interfax said."It's not a big surprise," Jim Walker, chief economist for investment bank Credit Lyonnais Securities Asia (CLSA), said. "I think everybody thought the size of China's economy was badly understated."China is expected to revise its 2004 GDP numbers as part of the country's first national economic census, which was conducted by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). The results of the...

On September 13th, over 5,000 Chinese gathered outside Waldorf-Astoria that visiting Chinese president Hu is sheduled to stay, chanting and dancing for 5 hours, waving Chinese communist flag. (Other sources: for security reason Hu didn't show up. The Chinese well wishers finally got angry and turned to their organizers, then left the street scene a mess.)

China has been selling its relatively cheap but lower quality products with ease both to US and EU. With US, China is running a trade deficit of about $100 billion a year. A similar trade deficit exists with the EU. The Chinese do not feel obliged to balance the trade. They use FDI and dollar reserves in US and elsewhere as a tool to enhance their trade position. Though the US does not like it, only recently it has started to flex its muscles. Trade imbalance discussions have been going on for the last five years but the US took...

In a show of strength to save itself from demise, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rolled out its sinister plan prepared for years, a plan in which the Party makes an insane gamble from its deathbed. It did so in the form of a “speech” posted on the Internet (see Boxun.com of April 23, 2005). The “speech” consists of two parts: “The War Is Approaching Us” and “The War Is Not Far from Us and Is the Midwife of the Chinese Century.” The two, judging from their echoing contexts and consistent theme, are indeed sister articles. The “speech” describes in...

US Secretary of Defense and 10,000 Others Support CCP Resignations By Ji DaThe Epoch Times Jun 01, 2005 Group photo of US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and the CCP Resignation Service Center staff near the Lincoln Memorial Hall (The Epoch Times) WASHINGTON DC - On May 29, the day before Memorial Day, more than 10,000 Westerners in Washington DC signed petitions to support Chinese people withdrawing from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and to urge the CCP to immediately stop arresting people who have withdrawn from the CCP as well as respect the Chinese people’s freedom of choice. The...

 Japanese paper tells China not to divide TaiwanCNA , TAIPEI Thursday, Apr 28, 2005,Page 1 The mass-circulation Japanese daily Mainichi Shimbun urged China yesterday not to use Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan's visit as a "political tool to divide Taiwan." Instead, Beijing should use the historic meeting between Lien and President Hu Jintao, the general-secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), as a "strategic tool to enter into peaceful dialogue with Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party [DPP]," the daily said in an editorial. If the KMT-CCP summit can develop into cross-strait dialogue -- that is, the resumption of...

China's Selective MemoryBy PU ZHIQIANG Published: April 28, 2005 ew HavenEVER since June 4, 1989, when the world's cameras embarrassed the Chinese government by recording the slaughter of unarmed protesters in Beijing, spring has been a sensitive period in Chinese politics. Public demonstrations of all kinds have been repressed as if they were vicious cancers. It is indeed news, then, that people have been protesting in the streets of Chinese cities about Japan's wartime past, its textbooks' reluctance to face history squarely, and its proposed accession to the United Nations Security Council. Of course, the fundamental nature of these protests...

CCP Tries to Inspire Loyalty as Withdrawals Continue By Riordan GalluccioThe Epoch Times Apr 16, 2005 Chinese soldiers "voluntarily" swear to be loyal to the CCP in Shanghai April 5. Scenes like these are being repeated nationwide in attempts to forestall the mass resignations already underway.(Liu Jin/AFP/Getty Images) The upper levels of government are taking notice as the number of withdrawals from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rapidly approaches the one million mark. Since the publication of the "Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party," the question of membership in the CCP has taken center stage in China's everyday affairs. Responding...